Jim Furyk’s residence in downtown Jacksonville’s Riverside neighbourhood is roughly 30 minutes north of the world golf hall of fame in Florida. 

But the PGA Tour mainstay has made only two trips to the museum in his storied career.

The first visit came in 2012 to see his good friend Phil Mickelson inducted into the hall of fame. The second came four years later, when he contributed the hat, ball and glove from his record-breaking round of 58 at the Travelers Championship.

A third—and permanent—trip to the hall of fame seems inevitable.

Spanning nearly three decades on tour, Furyk has amassed 17 career victories — including a major championship at the 2003 US Open — and more than $US71 million in career earnings. Throw in a pair of sub-60 rounds for good measure, and the Pennsylvania native appears to be a lock to join his pal Phil in eternal enshrinement at the World Golf Village.

“I have (thought about it) because I get reminded about it a lot in interviews with the media,” Furyk said with a laugh. 

“What I can do in that scenario is just keep playing well, and hopefully it all works out. I haven’t been there (to the hall of fame village) that often, but it really is an amazing place. I didn’t want to stand around and smell the flowers, but it would be a great honour if one day that would happen.”

Always the cerebral player, Furyk hasn’t taken much time to stop and reflect on all of the accomplishments he’s accumulated over his lengthy PGA Tour career. He thinks about the misses far more often than the wins, he said, namely those two-shot defeats in 1998 at the hands of Mark O’Meara at the US Masters and the Open Championship.

But as the clock begins to tick down toward its next phase, the good memories are beginning to flood back.

“Surely more than they did 10, 15, 20 years ago,” he said of his good memories. 

“As a young player I never stopped and smelled the flowers. Even after wins, it was a short-lived excitement and then back to work. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve appreciated it more.”

Furyk turned 50 on May 12 and 50 is a number in golf that has long been viewed as the celebratory rite-of-passage that sees one career end on the PGA Tour and another begin on the PGA Tour Champions.

Furyk is looking forward to one day embracing those challenges against Bernhard Langer and Ernie Els. He’s even bringing a tournament to Jacksonville’s Timuquana Country Club in 2021, the Constellation Furyk & Friends, with him.

All that being said he’s still waiting for that final fulfilment on the tour he’s called home for 27 years. He’s not ready to hang it up just yet.

“No matter how much success you’ve had, you always want a little bit more,” he said. 

“There’s time for reflection down the road. I think that’s my nature, and everyone’s nature, to some extent. But I surely wouldn’t have imagined as a rookie on tour that 17 wins and 27 years later I’d still be out here playing.

“I’m excited about what I’ve accomplished. But I still feel like there’s a little bit more left in there.”

The results bear that out. Though he missed his last three cuts before the PGA Tour was postponed due to the covid-19 pandemic, the Payne Stewart Award winner carded a tie for 17th at the Safeway Open and a tie for 23rd at The RSM Classic during the autumn portion of the schedule.

But nothing showcased his trademark resolve quite like the 2019 Players Championship, where Furyk put together a gutsy, final-round 67 to finish second, one shot off winner Rory McIlroy. He squeezed into his hometown event as the last player in the field — thanks to his high finish the week before at the Honda Classic — and ended up with his best result since the 2016 US Open at Oakmont.

At TPC Sawgrass’s 72nd hole, Furyk stalked an approach shot that landed inside three feet. He tapped in for his fourth back-nine birdie and nearly stunned the golf world in the process before McIlroy maintained order with birdies at Nos 15 and 16 to clinch the victory.

“I haven’t put myself in the heat with really a good opportunity to win a golf tournament in a while, and I’ve missed it,” Furyk said afterwards. 

“I’ve missed the nerves, I’ve missed the excitement, the cheers, and I think the emotion you saw on 18 was just I was proud of the way I played.

That weekend put to rest any lingering questions about the state of Furyk’s game. Though he had been plagued by injuries in the years that preceded it — a nagging shoulder problem left him on the shelf for six months, in 2017 and 2018, which led to him missing the FedExCup playoffs for the first time in his career — his stirring performance on the Stadium Course proved he could still compete with the best.

Rival player Jhonattan Vegas said at the time: “Amazing. I was talking to Tiger (Woods) about him yesterday in the locker room, and it’s incredible.

“I mean, a guy at 48, contending at this course with these type of conditions? It’s not like the ball’s rolling forever and it’s playing short. It’s playing long and tough, and it shows the character of Jim Furyk and that’s kind of what he’s done all through his career.”

During the coronavirus break Furyk reflected on his very first win — at the 1995 Shriners Hospitals for Children Open, when Woods was still a year away from winning his first PGA Tour title — and the last win, two decades later at the 2015 RBC Heritage.

Furyk credits much of that first career victory, where he beat Billy Mayfair by one stroke, to the previous season’s Northern Telecom Open. It was there, in Tucson, that he posted the first of 188 career top 10 finishes and propelled him into the player he is today.

“I was a rookie on tour when I first put everything together, when I had my first top 10 and chance to win, and finally felt like maybe I belonged,” he recalled. 

“That’s the first time I thought, maybe I can make a career out of this. As a kid, it’s more of a dream, and it’s something you hope is possible and you put a lot of time and effort into it, but I don’t think you ever really know until you get there and arrive.

“This game can be mean at times, and it can get taken away really fast. I’ve remembered that throughout my career and always tried to work hard.”

No one has questioned Furyk’s work ethic over the years. And yet, he will never be mistaken as a player who works himself into the ground trying to repair his game when it’s not at its best.

That’s partly one of the secrets to his longevity. He strives to never forget why he plays the game, and he tries not to tamper too much with what’s worked for so long.

“You’ve got to be careful sometimes making hobbies your work,” he said. 

“Sometimes they lose the fun a little bit. I think all of us that play golf professionally, if you start treating it as a job, the enjoyment is not quite there. I think the guys that still have fun doing it have that little kid at heart in them and go out and play just like they did when they were 14 years old.”

Furyk, even at 50, still plays like he’s 14. Much of that is a credit to the only swing coach he’s ever known, his father Mike, and sticking to the unorthodox, upright swing the pair crafted together.

“I never tried to totally break down my golf swing and start over again,” Furyk said. 

“Had I done so, I wouldn’t have had the career that I did. Dad always had a watchful eye. Anytime I hit the panic button on my career, he was a calming effect. We always tried to get back to the fundamentals in what I did.”

It’s hard to argue with the results of that consistency, from the 17 wins to those aforementioned sub-60 rounds. There have only been 11 such moments in PGA Tour history, and Furyk is the only one to do it twice.

The first, a 59 in the second round of the 2013 BMW Championship, would have certainly been enough to cement his legendary status. But he outdid himself three years later in the final round of the 2016 Travelers Championship when he carded a 12-under 58, the only player in PGA Tour history to put that number on his scorecard.

Furyk’s monumental feat wouldn’t have even happened had he not shot 66 on Friday, which helped him make the cut on the number and advance to the weekend. He would go on to enter Sunday in a tie for 70th place after carding a third-round 72.

Furyk and playing partner Miguel Angel Carballo promptly went off early that morning —8.41am to be precise — with few spectators in sight. The leaders wouldn’t be playing for another five hours, and the pair had visions of a quiet morning before jetting off to their next destination.

“It was our 29th day in a row on the road playing in our fourth straight tournament,” Furyk recalled. 

“We were probably talking about what we were going to do when we got home and looking forward to some time off.”

Of course, history had other plans. Furyk would open his day with a front-nine 27, highlighted by a hole out for eagle from 135 yards at the third. After a par at the fourth, Furyk added four consecutive birdies to make the turn at eight under par.

Carballo said at the time: “I was so glad to be there and watch this player do this. After the eagle, we talked about the fact that he could make everything, because he was in the zone. We were seeing the best golf round in the history of golf, and we talked about that since hole number nine when he finished. (We knew) if he made three or four more, he’s going to have the best round in history.”

Word about Furyk’s day began to filter around the golf course after that. The TV broadcast tuned in to his round, while on-site media and local fans flocked to the group to watch.  

“After making the turn at eight under, there was a huge buzz,” Furyk said. 

“A lot of fans started running to the 10th tee, and I was teasing some of the media that they were running out there too. To get off to a good start on the backside was exciting.”

Furyk promptly added three more birdies — moving to 11 under for the day — before adding one more at the 16th. He closed with pars on his final two holes, celebrated with longtime caddie Mike “Fluff” Cowan and cemented his place in the PGA Tour record books.

In typical Furyk fashion, he kept none of his personal belongings from that day as a keepsake, instead delivering it all during one of his two lifetime trips to the hall of fame. And he watched the round for the first time only over the last several weeks in a live question-and-answer session with fans.